Head Start Eyes More Money for FY 2010

Last month, the House Appropriations Committee matched President Obama's request for $7.2 billion for next fiscal year, but the National Head Start Association said in its July 24 news feed that it still seeks an additional increase in Senate’s final figure:

The House Appropriations Committee marked up and passed the FY 2010 Labor, Health and Education (“Labor-H”) bill at the end of last week. Not surprisingly, after receiving significant increases this year through the supplemental American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ($2.1 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start) and with President Obama’s request for just $122 million more than Head Start received last year in our regular annual appropriation, the House Appropriations Committee agreed on President Obama’s request for Head Start. It would provide $7.2 billion (the same as the Obama Administration requested and $122 million above FY 2009) to “sustain high-quality, comprehensive early childhood services, including educational, health, nutritional, and social services, to approximately 978,000 low-income children before they enter school, nearly 70,000 over the fiscal year 2008 level.” The full House still needs to vote on the Labor-H bill.

NHSA and numerous partners requested an increase of 1 billion dollars for FY 2010 on top of the current annual appropriation. With the Senate slated to finish its work on all appropriation bills for FY 2010 by Oct. 1, NHSA invited its members to write or call Senate Appropriations Committee and subcommittee members.